“Il deserto dei tartari” or why never ever give up is not always a good advice (4 mins read)

In Black Swan book chapter Seven is dedicated to the “Living in the antechamber of hope”. Until reading this book I have never heard about the novel by Italian Dino Buzzati named “Il deserto dei tartari”. Its English title is mistranslated as The Tartar Steppe instead of The Desert of the Tartars.

Let me give a small description about that book.

Giovanni Drogo is a man of promise. He has just graduated from the military academy with the rank of junior officer, and active life is just starting. But things do not turn out as planned: his initial four-year assignment is a remote outpost, the Bastiani fortress, protecting the nation from the Tartars likely to invade from the border desert-not too desirable a position. The fortress is located a few days by horseback from the town; there is nothing but bareness around it-none of the social buzz that a man of his age could look forward to. Drogo thinks that his assignment in the outpost is temporary, a way for him to pay his dues before more appealing positions present themselves. Later, back in town, in his impeccably ironed uniform and with his athletic figure, few ladies will be able to resist him.

What is Drogo to do in this hole? He discovers a loophole, a way to be transferred after only four months. He decides to use the loophole.

At the very last minute, however, Drogo takes a glance at the desert from the window of the medical office and decides to extend his stay. Something in the walls of the fort and the waiting for the attackers, the big battle with the ferocious Tartars, gradually become his only reason to exist.

The entire atmosphere of the fort is one of anticipation. The other man spend their time looking at the horizon and awaiting the big event of the enemy attack. They are so focused that, on rare occasions, they can detect the most insignificant stray animal that appears at the edge of the desert and mistake it for an enemy attack.

Sure enough, Drogo spends the rest of his life extending his stay, delaying the beginning of his life in the city-thirty five years of pure hope, spent in the grip of the idea that one day, from the remote hills that no human has ever crossed, the attackers will eventually emerge and help him rise to the occasion.

At the end of the novel we see Drogo dying in a roadside inn as the event for which he has waited all his life takes place, He has missed it

Drogo is obsessed and blinded by the possibility of an unlikely event; that rare occurrence is his raison d’etre. Sometimes we also play Giovanni Drogo in the antechamber of hope, waiting for the big event, sacrificing for it, and refusing intermediate steps, the consolation prizes.

It is familiar feeling isn’t it? That was pretty same with my own experience in applying for master degree scholarship programs in abroad. Spent three years just applying, waiting, hoping and getting rejection. It was a time to give up and let it go. What a wise decision! Resistance might be good in some cases but if you see you can’t get what you want, then you should ask yourself what if I am not “in the right place at the right time”. After stopping applying for scholarship programs I became to see that intermediate steps and consolation prizes.

“Never ever give up” is popular advice and it works, however sometimes it leads us to make foolish decision in our live. You become obsessed with goal, idea and it gradually makes you blind to other opportunities. You underestimate the chance of reaching that goal by trying other methods and ways. We need to think out of the box, evaluate the possibility of achieving that goal and to leave over optimism out of the doors.

By giving up my goal-“studying in abroad with full scholarship”-I encountered the other opportunities. I don’t regret for that decision and I’ll go further to mention that I feel blessed now for the things happened few months later that decision.

We always don’t know what is good for us. Life can surprise us in a good way if we stop planning and taking control of everything about ourselves. By running for something we may end up missing that thing.

Just be able to let it go and embrace serendipity!

I want to end this post with the statement about focusing illusion from my favorite book “Thinking, Fast and Slow” by Daniel Kahneman, the man who made me fall in love with behavioral economics.

Source: “The Black Swan” Nassim Nicholas Taleb

Please note that English is not my first language.

Note: it was published in 2018 on natadan.com